T Y This is better than the Michael York 'Great Expectations' which is not worth your time. But some addled producer must have gotten it in his head that Dickens deserved the weightiness of Shakespeare. It doesn't. Almost all Dickens is low, rollicking and shambling, with fuzzy edges. His books don't have these overly tasteful aspirations. Here, a very good Dickens novel is given a straight, costume-drama, Masterpiece Theater production. And it attempts some regional verisimilitude that doesn't end up adding much. It seems designed to appeal to female viewers. Dickens characters are recluses, unbalanced eccentrics and weirdos, but here they've all been leveled out. Characters, settings, emotions, none of it ends up being as vivid as the David Lean version which has been more lovingly shaped. Every emotion in this is oh-so-serious with characters brooding over things that can't be spoken. It's like they all worked too hard on figuring out the "inner truth" and "motivation" of their characters. PFFFFT! To what end? It kills the story. They're so uptight they might as well be Swedish.The story is better and more thoughtful when it's ambiguous and without a villain (See Lean). Miss Havisham is a bit of absurdity who should be treated almost as a caricature, though she certainly delivers some bombshells. It doesn't suit the story for her be played realistically like here. Orlick shows up in this version, but his value was never very important to the Pip narrative, except to include Dicken's usual villain. This Jaggers just cannot compare with Francis Sullivan's haughty power-brokering from '46. But the fatal blow is Ioan Gruffudd. At no point can a viewer decipher what his impenetrable, stone-faced Pip feels about anything. It's impossible to see him as anything other than a prop that is acted upon. The pacing is beyond lugubrious. Not an ounce of humor remains.

pawebster This is quite a good version, but be prepared for some oddities. The main one that Pip is made less nice than usual. His friendship with Joe is made to seem particularly one-sided, and he is extra reluctant to help Magwitch on the latter's return. Both young and older Pip are well played -- Gabriel Thomson deserves particular praise -- but we never feel that we really know the character. This is perhaps the main defect of this version. The voice-over in the old David Lean version was helpful there.I personally don't like Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham. The role should not have been glamourised. Dickens does not do glamour. Estella is good however. Compare this performance with the oversweet Estella of the David Lean film.By the way, this version has an excellent Herbert Pocket. The goody-goody characters in Dickens are not easy to play without sugary sentimentality, but Daniel Evans' Herbert really lives.

shatnes551 As a classic, Great Expectations is hardly done any justice with this film. I have seen the mini-series film on Pride & Prejudice and it was an almost literal reproduction of the novel. In contrast, this film just about assumes one has read the novel and pretty much depends upon it as well. There is absolutely no introduction, and as such, the tight relationship between Pip and Joe is entirely skipped over. The characterizations of the young Pip and Estella are altogether unbelievable, and there are many instances of this film veering from the text. Jaggers's most identifying property, his finger-biting and pointing/shaking is essentially deleted from the novel, and there is, in addition to that, a lot more left out for, I suppose, the sake of cutting the feature length.

flyboy-7 Director Julian Jarrold does a truly excellent job of bringing Charles Dickens' finest novel to the screen. Filled with haunting camera angles, a magnificent score by Peter Salem, and superb acting by Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd and Justine Waddall, this version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS is defintly worth multiple viewings!!